lt cap,

Thanks for sniffing out the reason for today's debacle with NOK. Unless my math is off, NOK is down 5%, which is not bad considering ERIC is down 17%. But I'd expect another hit when (probably, I'd guess) NOK's CC isn't going to be a joyful event.

I hate to air my ignorance publicly, but I'm not sure how all the moving parts fit together: NOK is an optical equipment maker. It also has a good slew of patents that it licenses out for other companies (such as Samsung), and there is going ot be a resurfacing of phones with NOK's brand name on them, altho they will not be manufactured by NOK. If I'm missing something, please correct me.

The last 2 days have really been brutal. I understand that NOK can't be a totally different story of ERIC and why - ERIC is basically saying their business is taking a horrific hit. Why (revs, is it) will drop 93%, I don't know what is driving that slump. But just as ERIC has missed 4X in a row, my memory says that NOK hasn't made their numbers in at least the past several quarters. Also, Samsung predicted a 33% drop because of the Note 7 fiasco. I can certainly understand that I think - I don't think their brand name will suffer much. But what's catching fire is not the original phone they put out - it's the replacement for the original phone catching fire. (I wish they had spun it differently as in "No, no - it's not a defect - it's another unique innovation in our products - you can use your phone as a cigarette lighter.) I imagine the blow to NOK thru Samsung is the licensing revenues they lose, compounded by the time it will take Samsung to design and put out a replacement for the 3rd iteration of it's phone, bundled with a fire extinguisher, just in case. I think that's what you referred to yesterday as it being an immediate hit to ERIC, but not significant in the long run. (I think I heard that the also license to Apple, so perhaps some of the revenue gets shifted to them, although I'd think it'd be hard to change one's phone and everything associated with it to a 'Mac' system.)

I will likely stand pat and suffer the pain, if I've got all that right, as the long run is what counts.  I wonder whether selling some shares ahead of the CC, betting it won't be very good is  an idea to consider, although timing the market and timing companies are just not really solid footings. At the opposite end, buying more here, if one can stand it, is probably not a grand idea, as we've no idea of what is cheap, given all the problems. INFN is the poster boy for that.

If you've got the time and inclination, let me know if I'm understanding this correctly, as far as your viewpoint and the real facts go.

I'm beginning to either hate Jon or envy him, not sure which. He options out CIEN, and I wait, as the uptrend may well have continued I thought. With pretty exact timing, CIEN has plunged from well above 22 to slightly above 21. Apparently, your record of call options trading is the kiss of death for the given company. I don't understand how that works, but next time, I'm just going to follow your lead :-)

NOK also is in the Router and Switching and SDN markets.  These should help cushion some of the brutal decline in the Wireless segment.  

You may be right about NOK having missed several quarter, the reason I count two is because my reference is post ALU merger, but NOK may have missed guidance before that took place.

Suri saw this coming, hence the ALU acquisition, the problem is the decline in wireless is huge.  Also, given the magnitude of Ericson's miss, the market is correctly doubting that NOK can deliver this quarter guidance.  The odds are against it, right or wrong.

This past year has not been a happy one.

lt cap,

Thanks for the take. Wireless is in a terrrible downdraft because....? Telecoms and other users of wireless products are waiting for 4.5g or 4.9g or....figuring that they can wait it out until the real 5g cycle beginas? And/or because they're finding ways to delay buildout (see below)? Or have I got that quite wrong.

I have Comcast. Which is every bit as miserable as Time Warner. So they would be a perfect match. Got a notice from Comcast in the mail last week. Explaining a new policy - I have heard of this but thought it was much further into the future. They will allow users 1TB of data per month.  Saying that that won't affect something like 98% of users or some funny accounting like that - and those who go over 1tb will need to buy more 'packets' of data transmission. They claim you'll never see it - citing that you can stream 12,000 movies or more funny accounting just using the 1tb you are given. I have to admit that the 1tb is way beyond anything I will need. But I have no cable nor streaming services (well, except for PBS streaming and Amazon video occaisionally.) But I also see it, perhaps, as their foray into the area of data-cappng, and may well induce lower limits over time, as they'll see what they can get away with without losing customers, but lessening the need for build-out. May be my paranoid fantasy, but their record on screwing their customers isn't exactly a mirage. I don't know what kind of usage digital distrabution of  games and playing online takes up. If your kid is playing online 13 hours a day, I don't know what the hit to your usage that takes, not to mention the costs of paying for weight-watchers and the psychiatrist's bill.

Jamok,

The deployment of 4G is pretty much done in the US, Europe and most of the Far East; there are metro areas in all these regions that due to congestion, will need to add more capacity (i.e. additional cells), but these are small potatos.  The third world is still adding 4G but it is not extensive as they lack the $$  to move aggressively.  In the mean time for the wireless segment, it is a service revenue and equipment replacement revenue and capacity expansion type of operation. 

So the question of when does 5G come around?  It will start slowly and begin around second half 2018.  However, the standards for 5G, and these estimates vary depending on who you listen to,  should also gel sometime between late 2018 and late 2019.

It is because of standards that the deployment will start sometime in late 2018, and it is why it will be a slow process.